Pitching A Theater

Programmers at small theaters often book, run the box office and post on social media themselves. A short, clear email that fits their room gets answered. A long one gets skipped.

Before You Write

Read the theater's listing: what it books, its formats, its terms, and how it wants to be pitched. Follow its own instructions first.
Check it plays a format you can deliver.
Give it time. Many programmers book two to four months ahead.

The First Email

Subject: the title, the genre and the runtime.
One line on what the film is.
Why it fits that room: a horror night, a local angle, a cast or crew tie to the town.
What you bring: a Q and A, a poster and trailer, posts they can share, people you will bring.
The formats you can deliver and the terms you are open to.
A private screener link. No attachments.

Use the Draft My Pitch button on any theater's page to start an email built from that theater's own instructions.

Show Them You Can Fill Seats

A relationship opens the door. Without one, what opens it is proof that people will come. Four things do that work, and any one of them puts your email ahead of most:

A local partner. A college department, a church, a union hall, a club, a nonprofit tied to your subject. Name it in the email and say what it will do: an email to its list, a table at the door, a block of seats.
A community tied to the subject. A film about nurses has nurses. A film shot in a town has that town. Say how many people are in it and how you reach them.
A Q and A. You, the lead, the subject of the documentary. A programmer can sell a night with a person in the room; a file alone is harder.
An RSVP list or pre-sold tickets. Even forty names on a list is proof. Pre-sales are the strongest proof there is.

Four-walling is the easiest yes because the theater takes no risk. Once you have one night of turnout to show, a revenue split becomes a real conversation. A festival run helps the same way: the programmers you met there carry over into bookings.

This is also what theaters say in their own words. A single screen in a town of a thousand people wrote on its Indie Circuit listing that it wants "films with an appeal to tourists" and "marketing by the filmmakers," because its own audience is not enough. Read a theater's What We Are Looking For before you write, and answer it.

After

If you hear nothing, follow up once, after about two weeks.
If they say no, thank them and ask what they look for. Many say yes to the next film.